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New Year’s Day Was Also for Polar Bear Miatas

The story was a same yesterday flattering most everywhere from Times Square and Baltimore to Southern California and a Texas/Mexico border: a record-setting cold snap, featuring frozen temperatures on routinely balmy beaches and wind-chill alerts in each state though Florida and South Carolina. Most people stayed inside if they had a choice and bundled adult if they didn’t. It was one of those days where everybody who owns a 4×4 pickup, SUV, or crossover personally congratulates themselves for spending a additional income and fast a top-heavy handling. In other words, it was a misfortune day possible to expostulate a tiny, two-seat automobile sports car.

For that reason, we was as astounded as everybody else when Mazda used amicable media channels to muster Miata and MX-5 owners to glow adult their roadsters, dump a tops, and strike a highway for an eventuality a association hashtagged as #MiataPolarBear. “Drop a tip and expostulate safe,” a association said, accompanied by videos of a new Miata cavorting around what looked like an unplowed Rocky Mountain road.

As some readers might remember, my mother bought an ex-Skip-Barber MX-5 Club progressing this year. In a ideal world, that MX-5 would be tucked divided for a deteriorate in a exhilarated storage garage–but in a genuine world, it’s been sitting outward all winter since we are now adult to 3 competition cars in a family and we don’t have any lonesome parking available. In other words, we had no forgive not to put on a large child and lady (snow) pants for a top-down winter adventure.

It wasn’t as easy as we’d hoped. To start with, in sequence to have a top-down winter journey we have to indeed dump a top. In a box of “Ava,” a MX-5 Club, that tip was lonesome by a two-inch-thick covering of ice. After starting a car, something that acted no problems notwithstanding a fact that Ava had been sitting for a few months, Danger Girl and we set about a prolonged charge of delicately chipping off a ice though deleterious a fabric. Forty-five mins and 3 changes of gloves later, we were means to get a tip down though not totally sealed into place.

We had reduction fitness removing a side windows to drop, though that was okay; tip down and windows adult is a default condition for 911 Cabriolet owners any time it drops subsequent seventy-five degrees. At a dashboard-indicated fourteen degrees we didn’t feel too bad about intrigue a breeze a bit. It was time to set out on a snow-covered open road.

Several of a #MiataPolarBear taggers on Instagram have Blizzaks or other winter tires for their Miatas, creation them year-round propositions if you’re a audacious adequate fellow. We were still on a Skip-Barber-spec BFG summer tires, that meant that even light vigour on a stifle was accompanied by a quick-hissing sound of spinning rubber on pavement. Caution was a slogan here.

Still, with a heater grating and speeds subsequent 55mph a small Club was positively livable, even as a interior acquired a light frosting of snow. we spent a few winters in a Eighties throwing rides to propagandize and work in a friend’s aged Fiat Spider, that had a semi-weatherproof tip though suffered from a heater that was clearly designed around a needs of people vital in southern Italy. I’d contend that a Mazda was indeed warmer notwithstanding a forsaken top.

“Doesn’t a 2018 Club have exhilarated seats?” Danger Girl shouted during me as we zipped down a scarcely dull four-lane road.

“Yes, it does, during slightest as an option.”

“We should have a 2018 Club.”

“It’s your money.” we kind of wish she forgets about that, since nonetheless we consider a stream Miata is about a biggest street-focused sports automobile in story I’m tempted to cite a NC-generation cars for their somewhat broader-beamed proportions and stouter drivetrains. Right now, an early NC is about a biggest discount in a used-car market. They final perpetually and they now have a conspicuous volume of support in a aftermarket. Plus we can expostulate them in a winter, obviously.

After a discerning fill-up and a few tail-out shenanigans in an as-yet-unplowed resolution down a street, we parked Ava, put her tip behind adult to a tinkling accompaniment of ruinous ice, and headed inside for some uninhibited self-congratulation. we done a mental note to get her to a spray-and-wash on a subsequent salt-free day, only to keep a underside from corroding.

A discerning check of Instagram showed me that utterly a few other owners had also risen to a challenge, including a few West Coast Miata drivers who were experiencing sub-freezing temperatures behind a circle for a initial time in a prolonged time. With a contented winter challenge, Mazda had caused all of us to recur a volume of use we could get from vehicles that are typically deliberate “toys” or “summer cars.” Not that I’m going to get absolved of my 4×4 Silverado or even my winter-tire-equipped Accord–but you’ll be means to find me on a highway for a subsequent #MiataPolarBear day, and copiousness of other cold times besides.